That long skinny prominence we saw near the N pole for several days last week – turns out it was a solar tornado. It was many thousands of miles tall. It’s gone now, but you can read about it today on

Excellent Kent – glad you got out. Wow, Sub-arcsecond seeing and 785X in a 6” refractor! Roy

That is Collinder 70, not 71

We will meet you at the Omni in the cage! Update: Kappa Leonis went down tonight in defeat!We both saw the secondary in Kent's 6 inch using a fifty year old eyepiece in very good seeing conditions. Th

The forecast is improving the Spring 2023 SRSP and I hope that trend will continue. I'll be heading up on Monday since the beginning of the week is looking pretty good. I hope to see some other BBAA m

He also caught Collinder 71, a large star cluster around the center star in the belt. Rare seen from the city or suburbs and rarely noticed by telescope users who are using tight FOVs. Relax your eyes

So far, so good with Saturday night's forecast. We will have an open to the public astronomical observing session starting sunset. I plan to get there an hour before sunset- if I can get the time righ

Hi all; The ISS makes an excellent flyover tonight at around 8:35. At 8:38 it will have a mars conjunction. Looks like good weather…. Excellent opportunity for a picture!! -Mike Chesson

Despite high winds and cold temperatures conditions were excellent for observing. Seeing was excellent and we were able to try several very difficult doubles. Kent's neighbor came over and he experien

Kent and I spend an inordinate amount of time examining double stars and we tend to do this routinely without much thought but every now and then it is worth a moment to consider just what you are doi

I will be on a trip to Lancaster, Pennsylvania from 22 to 28 March, so I need someone to volunteer to lead Garden Stars at Norfolk Botanical Garden the night of March 28 at 8:00 pm DST. Roland Downing

I just noticed that the scheduled sessions for 3/1, 3/30/ and 4/25 failed to request RSVP volunteers. Please sign up to support these events. I just changed the schedule to ask for 4 volunteers for ea

Just thought you'd like to see Stargazing Stargazing Join the Virginia Peninsula Stargazers as they point out the different items of our solar system in the night sk... Carpe Noctem Bill McLean

Sky tools has the separation at 2.4 arc seconds as of 1975. Not sure where it is now. Does 0.4 more than 2 make a difference? I don't know. I might buy 2.4 for 5 magnitudes difference but still one of

Last nightwas quite good. The temperatures were quite moderate and the seeing was if not perfect pretty good. The standout object last night was the double star Kappa Leo. Kent was not able to detect

Why nobody talking about 2023 Ring of Fire Solar Eclipse. I'll be in Roswell N.M Going to be a big party there, Anybody?? D.Carey

I had time at the end of the evening yesterday to observe the Crater Aristarchus and the plateau it sits on. Using the 5 inch with a 9mm orthoscopic eyepiece I could detect stripes of dark material on

The 93% full Moon was beautiful last night. Who saw it?

I believe, additionally, that this is the reason there are no pictures of Kent Blackwell prior to 1840 as exposure times were greater that one minute prior to the invention of the lens. This practical

The Petzval lens was designed in the 1840's as a fast focal ratio (f3.4) photographic portrait lens. 4 elements (two sets of spaced doublets), it could reduce portrait exposure times to less then a mi